About Us
Who We Are
We are a small group of volunteers who are passionate about Te Aroha. We organize events and facilitate projects involving the community, to protect and enhance our town’s environment to create a beautiful, safe, and sustainable place to live.
In 2020 one of our members collaborated with some locals to set up a community native plant nursery at the Te Aroha college, which now produces native plants for the various planting projects KTAB is promoting and facilitating around town.
Current Events
Domain Day
Keep Te Aroha Beautiful supports the annual Te Aroha Domain Day with a stall to promote what they are doing. This year (2023) on 12 March they ran a native plant quiz where participants had to match names with plants. The winner received 20 native plants of their choice from our nursery. There were 5 entrants out of 50 who had the maximum score (20 out of 20). The 4 runners up received 10 plants each. We also drew one participant out of the hat, who also received 10 plants. All winners visited the nursery to pick up their plants and were given a tour
around it, which all enjoyed.
Country Market Day
Each second Sunday of the month Te Aroha has a Country Market. Initially at Mangaiti, the market moved to Boyds Park in Te Aroha from September 2023. KTAB has joined the market at their Boyds Park opening Sunday and were also their in October. At the market we promote our work while also making surplus plants available at a reasonable price. We use this to help run our nursery (maintenance, purchase potting mix, tools etc. and also fund community projects in Te Aroha, we get involved in. We intend to be on the market during the planting season (May – October)
Paul & Delma Worsley Te Aroha Community Nursery
Three retirees, Paul Worsley, Lindsay Best and Rien van de Weteringh got together in 2019 with the idea to start a native plant nursery in Te Aroha, read on if you like to know how it all started, read
How it began
A few years ago when Rien was still working for the Waikato Regional Council (WRC), when Keep Te
Aroha Beautiful (KTAB) member Lindsay Best turned up at our office in Terminus Street. Lindsay was
looking for support from WRC to convince MPDC to protect some remnant Kahikatea trees in the Herries
Park South Reserve, which had cows grazing at the time, damaging the trees and polluting waterways.
He had been going to the District Council regularly but was now also looking at the regional council for
more support to protect the trees he was so passionate about. Rien lent him a sympathetic ear and as
we were talking with MPDC about the kahikateas, he turned up almost weekly at Rien’s office. At one
such occasion Rien mentioned he wouldn’t mind joining his group once he was retired (in a year’s time)
and maybe we could establish a community native plant nursery to grow trees for projects around town.
It didn’t take long when he came back to say that he had a back neighbour who was keen to be part of
setting up a community nursery – and that back neighbour was Paul Worsley.
Soon the three got together and were wondering where they could set up such a nursery, when Rien
remembered the disused horticulture shed at the college grounds and the little old shade house next to
it. Next step was a meeting with Deputy principal Peter Jager to ask if they could utilize these facilities:
Peter’s answer: “I can’t see why not, after all, it is a community college”
Paul had been growing seedlings at home and also was a keen member of the tramping club and with his
group “the legends” (he had a great knowledge of native plants) collected seed and seedlings on his
tramping trips. So this how they got going with the nursery: resurrecting the potting shed and shade
house, fixing the irrigation etc.
Paul quickly got some members of the tramping club involved and Ini (Kim) & Kate (Bailey) joined and
have been our mainstays almost from the very beginning, and a little later Paul Power (also a Rotarian
like Paul Worsley) and Marion Volker also joined.
Soon we ran out of space for plants and the Waikato Regional Council office in Terminisu allowed us to
use their yard as stand out place for our plants and later also Te Aroha Veterinary Service. In the mean
time we were looking at expanding our nursery at the college… The plants at WRC and the Vets were
looked after there by our KTAB members Andrea & Lindsay Best and this required regular watering by
hand, especially in the summer months.
Then, as most of you know, we lost Delma & Paul, a great loss to the family and friends of course but also
to the community, Paul was involved in so many things. We were floundering for a while as Paul was so
practical and hands on and got things done.
Nursery Extension
But we decided to carry on with planning to extend our nursery at the college to have all our plants in
one place.
We had to pick other people’s brains and got help from our friends of the Piako Catchment Forum Jude
& Ron, Te Aroha & Jason and got our plan ready. They were already supporting us with giving us growingon
seedlings and seeds.
Funding
After getting the OK from the College for the extension, we had to raise some funds for materials and
were looking for support to get the nursery constructed. MP District Council helped KTAB through the
LTP community fund and the Mountain Lions generously donated $1000 from their second hand book
sales. And we also sold some surplus plants.
Sponsors
Then we had some great help from the following businesses, organizations and people.
Gary Paetai from Ultimate Bobcats came in and stripped the site and carted away the soil.
Aaron Haddon organized the timber for us at trade prices and then he turned up with his crew and the
concrete truck to put in the posts.
Then Gary Paetai came back with his truck to cart all the gravel for our nursery base, donated by HG
Leach quarries , who also sent one of their own large trucks.
Te Aroha Lions and Piako Catchment Forum members wheelbarrowed and spread out the gravel.
The same team of Te Aroha Lions – led by Robert Utting ( including Mark, Gerrie and Warren) then
helped in several sessions to put up the rails and shade cloth.
When, in a while you walk through the nursery and you see all the green milk crates. Peter Galloway
from Fonterra gave these to us and they are brilliant to move plants around in.
Special mention also for David Norman from Netafim who has been very helpful with putting the design
of the watering system together, which came to us through local Alan Oliver’s Piako Rural Services at
discounted prices.
A friend from Matamata and Friends of Hawes Bush: David Tippett, who used to own a garden centre,
gave us all his left over water connections etc but also a controller for our irrigation, which is now in use.
Rotarian Tom Stephenson who has been putting shelving up in our potting shed and resurrecting the
box for the potting mix
And my friend Klaas Groen I could always go to as a last resort for bits and pieces: I’ve got No money but
lots of stuff Klaas would say. He also helped me dismantling a commercial shade house from his friend
Opening Day Paul & Delma Worsley Community Native Plant Nursery
Some 80 people, came together at Te Aroha College last Saturday 29th of April to celebrate the opening of the
Paul & Delma Worsley Community Native Plant Nursery. Attendees included Paul & Delma’s son Adrian Worsley,
Mayor Adrienne Wilcox, councilors Russell Smith and Peter Jager and also the new College Principal Neil Harray.
Members of Keep Te Aroha Beautiful under which umbrella the nursery is operating, also welcomed sponsors
and many other interested members of the public.
Paul Worsley was a founding member of the nursery, but he and Delma sadly died in August 2020 when
the nursery was in its beginning stages. Paul and the two other founding members Lindsay Best and Rien
van de Weteringh were already contemplating extension of the nursery, which is located at Te Aroha
College, as they had run out of space and had to use off-site stand out space for their plants, which was
generously provided by Waikato Regional Council in Terminus Street and later by Te Aroha Veterinary
Services in Burgess Street. These plants were looked after and hand watered by KTAB member Lindsay
and Andrea Best and also Toos Bruygoms
Losing Paul and Delma was a great loss to family and friends but also to the community, as they were
involved in so many activities in Te Aroha. Paul had been raising native seedlings at home and was also a
keen member of the tramping club. He had a great knowledge of native plants and in his “slower” subtramping
group the “Legends” he had time to collect seeds and seedlings on his tramping trips. He soon
had other tramping members Ini Kim and Kate Bailey involved in the nursery and fellow Rotarian Paul
Power followed quickly, who all have been the mainstays of the nursery almost from the beginning.
Marion Volker also joined the group raising some of the seedlings organically. Further members who
joined last year are Keep Te Aroha Chair are Bryan Turner (after he retired from paid work) and Martin
Nelson, who has also been the handyman at the nursery and instrumental to get the nursery ready in
the last couple of weeks before opening. Other members who come to the nursery session of Friday
mornings when work and other circumstances allow, are Ruairi Kelly, Mike Paviour, Jihan Kim and Annie
Watts.
Adrian Worsley, known for his many recycled and scrap metal creations around town and further afield,
had crafted a beautiful nursery name sign of horseshoes, discarded by a local farrier, now sitting above
the entrance of the native plant nursery in memory of his parents.
The day was opened with a Karakia by local Ngati Tumutumu representative Corey McGaskell and people
were welcomed by Bryan Turner, who handed over to Rien van de Weteringh who told the story on how
the nursery came together, thanking the many sponsors. The nursery has been a real community effort,
which was emphasized by Mayor Adrienne Wilcox when she referred to the number 8 mentality of the
rural kiwi, to make things happen with minimum resources and getting the community involved.